Housing

Since she was first elected in 2011, St. John’s Centre MHA Gerry Rogers has been an outspoken advocate for the desperate need the province has for a strategy to address the many housing needs faced by the people of the province. A new report on homelessness in the capital city underscores the results of years of neglect by successive Liberal and Conservative governments.

The sale of publicly-owned property has been in the news lately, including the sale of the former Hoyles-Escasoni buildings and land in St. John’s, for just $650,000. Today in the House of Assembly, NDP MHAs tried to get answers on government’s stewardship of real estate assets.

NDP House Leader Lorraine Michael (MHA, St. John’s East-Quidi Vidi) says unregulated boarding and rooming houses are notorious for the substandard living conditions they provide for some of the province’s most vulnerable people. In addition to the exorbitant rates landlords charge government, she says, this type of housing also leads to increased costs for health care.

NDP Housing Critic Gerry Rogers (MHA, St. John’s Centre) says it’s long past time for the Minister of Service Newfoundland and Labrador to introduce a Residential Tenancies Act that actually deals with the housing realities of the people of the province.

In 2013, NDP MHA Gerry Rogers (St. John’s Centre) called the $10 million budget cut to NL Housing “a shameful display of government’s complete lack of understanding of the housing crisis facing thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians .” The effects of these cuts can now be seen in NL Housing’s tender to sell off 223.8 acres in Southlands – an area larger than Bowring Park.

NDP Housing Critic Gerry Rogers (MHA, St. John’s Centre) says if government is serious about dealing with the province’s housing crisis, it should speed up inspection and repairs of its existing housing units, a growing number of which stand vacant while people languish on waiting lists.